In act three ofBaldur’s Gate 3– yes, I’m going to be spoiling a specific quest, so click away now if you want to avoid that – there is a side quest that explores journalism as a medium. Obviously, as a journalist, I found this particularly appealing, because who doesn’t like seeing themselves represented in video games? It’s easy to find this quest early in the game’s third act, because before you even enter the city of Baldur’s Gate proper, you might encounter a journalist named Lens by the bridge to Wyrm’s Crossing in Rivington.
Lens tells you that she’s a reporter with the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette, and she’s digging into the refugee situation. She asks you a few questions about what you’ve encountered, and it’s clear from this that she wants to get to the truth of what’s going on, instead of writing the “fluff piece” her editor wants about the efficacy of the Steel Watch. She tells you that her editor only releases articles that Lord Gortash approves of.
Depending on how many times you’ve encountered Orin as a shapeshifter already, she might be a real journalist, or she might be Orin in disguise. In my playthrough, she was actually herself.
Later, you might find another reporter with the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette near the entrance of Baldur’s Gate, and she’ll tell you that you’re the talk of the town. Going to Baldur’s Mouth to see what’s going on reveals that there’s a very negative, untrue article being written about you, and you have to find a way to sabotage their efforts. Not doing so will lower citizens’ opinion of you, making your life a little harder as you progress through the final act. This mostly manifests in people commenting on it and vendors charging you more for goods, so it’s notthatbad, but still.
Encountering both these reporters paints a nuanced picture of journalism’s ills that immediately made me draw comparisons to my own life. I live in Singapore, a country that,according to Reporters Without Borders, ranks 129 out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index. When I was deciding what to study in university, my parents persuaded me to go into journalism instead of literature because it would be a more stable career – considering what’s happened to the media industry in the decade since, this turned out to be wrong.
Here’s how to do that quest most efficiently, by the way.
In my very first semester, I and everybody in my year had to take a Singapore-specific course, created with the express purpose of teaching students how to create things without risking legal repercussions from not just civilians and corporations, but the government. We learned about the Sedition Act, a lawfirst introduced to curb local opposition to British colonial rule, where publishing and spreading materials that undermine the government or create tensions between different races or classes of the population could lead to imprisonment.
This law was repealed in 2021 after the 2019 institution of POFMA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act), a statute that allows authorities to punish publications for publishing or distributing “fake news”. You should look up how it’s been used, and against who.
Now, take into consideration that Singapore gets its news mostly from state-owned national broadsheets. Independent publications like those inNew NaratifandJomhave faced their own POFMA cases. Consciously or unconsciously, journalists in my country have learned to be very careful about what they say in order to stay within legal bounds.
Okay, Singapore history lesson over. Obviously, this isn’t the same thing as what happens in Baldur’s Gate 3. Singapore doesn’t have an evil, power-hungry guy with hardcore band member-esque hair threatening and bribing newspaper editors to publish straight up propaganda in order to lull its citizens into a false state of security, ripe for parasitic brainwashing.
But it does make me think about how these institutions, meant to be a public and necessary good, can be twisted by bad actors. It makes me think about how journalism is changing over time. In a media landscape increasingly driven by clicks, where even reputable platforms can publish poor and unethical reporting in order to draw eyes, reporters like Lens are becoming more important and harder to find.
To go against pressure to report things with nuance, honesty, and empathy is difficult and brave, and independent publications need to be able to thrive for us to foster journalists willing to do that. The Baldur’s Mouth Gazette is an example of how journalism can go very wrong, but it was also a reminder for me to always try to do what’s right.
So, as I did this quest, I tried to do the right thing. The only way to get a good outcome is to sneak in and swap the defamatory article out for something else. I opted to replace it with something totally unrelated to my party instead of something positive – I believe in journalistic ethics, after all, and manipulating the press to make my character look good would be just as bad. So the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette published an article about a really cute cat. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have had to take matters into my own hands. But Baldur’s Gate, just like my city, is far from perfect.
Baldur’s Gate 3
WHERE TO PLAY
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.
